Burien teen arrested in February drive-by shooting

Originally published April 13, 2009 at 9:09 am

Updated April 13, 2009 at 1:31 pm

A 17-year-old Burien boy was apprehended near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Sunday, days after prosecutors charged him with drive-by shooting and issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with a gang shooting in February.

A Burien teen was apprehended near Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Sunday, days after prosecutors issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with a gang-related drive-by shooting in February.

Jose Noe Cervantes, 17, was booked into the Regional Justice Center in Kent just before 5:30 p.m. Sunday and is being held on $200,000 bail, jail records show. He was arrested at South 188th Street and International Boulevard, just east of the airport, a jail spokesman said.

Details of his arrest were not immediately available.

According to charging documents that were filed Thursday, Cervantes was one of three young, Hispanic males in a red Honda Civic that was heading south in the 13600 block of Ambaum Boulevard South around 8 p.m. on Feb. 28. Another group of young Hispanic males — self-admitted members of the Sureño 13 El Monte Flores gang — were standing outside an apartment complex when Cervantes allegedly fired a handgun from the car, hitting one in the left thigh, charging documents said.

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The victim told King County sheriff’s detectives that the occupants of Civic all wore blue hats and had blue bandannas concealing their faces. Before the shooting, the males in the Civic were flashing gang signs, indicating their membership in the Sureño 13 Varrio Loco street gang, charging documents say.

Two .380-caliber shell casings were recovered at the scene and the Civic, which had been stolen, was found nearby, the documents say.

Last month, detectives searched Cervantes’ Burien apartment but didn’t find him there. However, they did find “a lot of gang paraphernalia tying the defendant to the Sureño 13 Varrio Loco gang,” the papers say.